Operation Blessing to send fish to help in Haiti

On Friday, about 2,000 tiny fish in Mississippi will be sent to Haiti to help with Operation Blessing International’s earthquake relief project.

The Gambusia, minnows, eat many times their body weight in mosquito eggs and larvae and are used as a natural mosquito deterrent, a news release from the Virginia Beach-based agency said. The hope is that the Gambusia will help combat malaria in Haiti.

Operation Blessing used the fish in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in thousands of stagnant swimming pools around the city. OBI was credited by the city with averting an outbreak of West Nile Virus, the news release said.

Friday, hatchery staff in Mississippi will put the Gambusia into special aerated containers, driven to an airport and fly out by private plane to Florida. After a night there, Missionary Flights International will take the fish to Port-au-Prince and arrive about noon on Saturday.

Once in Haiti, the fish will be put into rearing tanks at a new fish hatchery. In a short amount of time, they are expected to multiply into the hundreds of thousands and when enough fish are available, the fish will stock mosquito-infested waters around the country.